Virgin Holiday Policy

Trending News: What Would You Do With Virgin's New Unlimited Vacation Policy?

Why Is This Important?

Take a day off, a week or even a month and nobody other than you has the right to mind or care? Sounds pretty good to us.

Long Story Short

Virgin founder and charismatic billionaire Richard Branson has introduced a holiday scheme that allows some Virgin employees to take as much time off as they like, whenever they like.

Long Story

Virgin founder Richard Branson has always had a unique flair for business. Now, he's taken that special Virgin way of doing things and applied it to employee holidays.

After his daughter sent him an email notifying him of a similar scheme used by Netflix, Branson decreed that some Virgin staff can now take holidays whenever and for however long they feel like it. No need to drop a manager an email giving them notice, or even bother informing your juniors for that matter. You could hang a "Gone Fishin'" sign on your office chair if you feel like it, but again, there are no rules.

If you're one of these seemingly blessed Virgin employees, your personal use of the holiday is not even monitored. Such is the trust Virgin places in its staff. The only proviso is that employees should only “do it when they feel a hundred per cent comfortable that they and their team are up to date on every project and that their absence will not in any way damage the business — or, for that matter, their careers,” said Branson.

Looking at the precedent set by Netflix — Branson’s guiding light for this concept — the focus is not on how much time you spend working, but what you get done in the time you are in office.

Are we at last seeing the established structure of the corporate world being dismantled? Is said corporate world finally moving into the the 21st century?

Other companies that have adopted a similar policy have seen a growth in productivity and morale. Google allows staff to spend 20% of their work time on personal projects. So far, this all sounds really good.

However, if your extended and random absences "will not damage the business in any way," as Branson puts it, what's stopping the company from making your absence permanent? Surely any free-wheeling use of this policy would only serve to draw attention to the fact that the company can carry on quite comfortably without you.

Would anyone serious about keeping their jobs dare to exploit all the potential for a better work-life balance that this policy appears to offer? And granted, maybe your manager won’t record your vacation time, but your colleagues will surely notice the empty space where you should be sitting.

The office atmosphere is bound to become a tad icy when certain people appear to have more time to play golf and go to the movies than others.

Needless to say, there may be a few teething problems for Virgin, but it’s an interesting scheme — one whose full potential can only be revealed through trialing. For the sake of every time we've ever stared out the office window and wished we were at the beach, here's hoping it works.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question: Would a policy like this work in your office? Could employees be trusted not to abuse it? Should society as a whole do away with traditional holiday policies?

Disrupt Your Feed: Is this new policy just an elaborate way for Richard Branson to justify all that time he already spends waterskiing with models in the Caribbean?

Drop This Fact: Branson's new holiday policy has so far only been made available to 170 staff in the UK and US, but if all goes well, Branson will roll the scheme out Virgin-wide.